the surface.  No other tablets appear to have been found near it, but that fact in itself would not be sufficient evidence on which to base any theory as to its not having originally formed part of the archives of the city.  Its unofficial character is attested by the form of the tablet and the manner in which the information upon it is arranged.  In shape there is little to distinguish the document from the tablets of accounts inscribed in the reign of Urukagina, great numbers of which have been found recently at Telloh.  Roughly square in shape, its edges are slightly convex, and the text is inscribed in a series of narrow columns upon both the obverse and the reverse.  The text itself is not a carefully arranged composition, such as are the votive and historical inscriptions of early Sumerian rulers.  It consists of a series of short sentences enumerating briefly and without detail the separate deeds of violence and sacrilege performed by the men of Gishkhu after their capture of the city.  It is little more than a catalogue or list of the shrines and temples destroyed during the sack of the city, or defiled by the blood of the men of Shirpurla who were slain therein.  No mention is made in the list of the palace of the Urukagina, or of any secular building, or of the dwellings of the citizens themselves.  There is little doubt that these also were despoiled and destroyed by the victorious enemy, but the writer of the tablet is not concerned for the moment with the fate of his city or his fellow citizens.  He appears to be overcome with the thought of the deeds of sacrilege committed against his gods; his mind is entirely taken up with the magnitude of the insult offered to the god Ningirsu, the city-god of Shirpurla.  His bare enumeration of the deeds of sacrilege and violence loses little by its brevity, and, when he has ended the list of his accusations against the men of Gishkhu, he curses the goddess to whose influence he attributes their success.

No composition at all like this document has yet been recovered, and as it is not very long we may here give a translation of the text.  It will be seen that the writer plunges at once into the subject of his charges against the men of Gishkhu.  No historical resume prefaces his accusations, and he gives no hint of the circumstances that have rendered their delivery possible.  The temples of his city have been profaned and destroyed, and his indignation finds vent in a mere enumeration of their titles.  To his mind the facts need no comment, for to him it is barely conceivable that such sacred places of ancient worship should have been defiled.  He launches his indictment against Gishkhu in the following terms:  “The men of Gishkhu have set fire to the temple of E-ki [... ], they have set fire to Antashura, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom!  They have shed blood in the palace of Tirash, they have shed blood in Abzubanda, they have shed blood in the shrine of Enlil and in